


Season Unending

by FourCatProductions



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Out, F/F, Family Secrets, Femslash, Minor Character Death, Non-Explicit Sex, Origin Story, Pre-Canon, Prophetic Visions, Taking A Level In Bad-Ass, Trans Female Character, seeking revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 02:40:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14154876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourCatProductions/pseuds/FourCatProductions
Summary: Jahaziel comes to Kynareth's temple, driven by her mother's final words to seek out the truth. Danica agrees to help, but when she sends Jahaziel to retrieve Nettlebane and restore the Gildergreen, it sets a chain of events in motion that neither of them could have predicted.





	Season Unending

Jahaziel dreamed of her mother’s death.

It wasn’t always the same death. Sometimes she was in their ramshackle cabin in the woods, kneeling next to the bed while her mother breathed her last, labored breaths. Other times, it was different; cut down by bandits, torn apart by wild beasts, drowned in Lake Honrich during the rainy season. Sometimes she just crumbled out of existence altogether, like sand on the riverbank. But no matter the dream, it always ended the same way – alone. Tonight, it dissipated as soon as she woke, leaving only a cold film of dread behind, and she sat up, breathing hard through her nose. Danica stirred beside her.

“Another dream?” Her voice was thick with sleep. Jahaziel nodded. Danica’s soft arms enfolded her, and she allowed herself to be pulled down to the mattress, face buried in Danica’s chest. “It wasn’t your fault.” Her fingers set to work unsnarling some of the knots in Jahaziel's mane of hair, black as the sky outside. “You were little more than a child.”

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” she mumbled.

Danica sighed. “Alright.” Her hands found the tense muscles at the base of Jahaziel’s neck, kneading absently. Danica had good hands, sturdy and gentle. Healer’s hands. “Do you need anything?”

“Just sleep.” Her tusks left little red indents where they pressed into Danica’s bare skin. She kissed them in silent apology. Danica shifted, hand cupping the back of Jahaziel’s neck. She was the quietest lover Jahaziel had ever taken. It was only in the moments where she lost herself that her reticence melted away, and Jahaziel treasured those like a handful of jewels. “Or maybe something else,” she added slyly, and Danica laughed, caught between charmed and exasperated.

“You can’t use sex as a distraction every time you don’t want to think about something.” But she was already tilting her head back, lips parted as Jahaziel cupped her bare breasts, callused thumbs skimming her nipples.

“Should I stop?” Danica shook her head, pink to her hairline. “Alright then.” She ducked beneath the covers, kissing her way down the plush belly to generous hips and thighs. Danica whispered something unintelligible, muffled by the bedclothes, and her hand tangled in Jahaziel’s hair.

\----------

They met the previous winter. Danica noticed her first; the temple got very few pilgrims without the Gildergreen’s splendor to attract them, and even fewer Orcs. She was tall, wrapped in a hooded bearskin cloak and carrying a shaman’s staff. Shells, beads and bones clinked when she moved like unearthly bells. She was standing in front of Kynareth’s altar when Danica approached, unable to contain her curiosity. “Welcome, traveler. Can I help you?”

“Perhaps.” Her voice was pleasantly raspy. “I am looking for someone named Pure-Spring.”

“That’s me,” Danica said. Her stomach gave a little jolt for reasons she couldn’t explain. “My name is Danica. I run the temple here.”

The Orc pushed her hood back. Thick dark hair cascaded over her broad shoulders, and rings of wood and bone hung from her ears and nose and pierced her eyebrows. Stripes of red and white clay were daubed thickly on her cheeks and chin, but it was her eyes that held Danica’s attention; they were the color of new grass, a few shades lighter than her skin. “I am Jahaziel gra-Shara. I think you are supposed to help me find something.”

Over tea, Danica drew the story out of her. Jahaziel had been raised by her mother, deep in the woods that bordered the Rift. She was a shaman as well, and taught Jahaziel everything she knew until her abrupt death several years earlier, leaving her daughter with their cabin and a cryptic prediction – _a pure spring will lead you to the truth._ They were her last words, and Jahaziel had puzzled over them for years, until a vision a few months ago had led her to Whiterun.

“And so, here I am,” she finished, awkwardly cradling her teacup like she was afraid she might break it.

Danica mulled over this for a moment. Earthy steam drifted up from her cup, sharply fragrant like fresh pine needles. “Far be it from me to tell you that your mother was mistaken,” she said, “but I don’t know what truth I’m supposed to lead you to.” _I don’t even know you,_ she almost added.

Jahaziel rubbed the back of her neck, sheepish. “I do not know either. But my mother… she was blessed by Malacath twice over. I have never known her visions to be wrong.”

“So, what do you intend to do?”

“I will stay here until I figure it out,” Jahaziel said. Danica began to protest, but she shook her head and set her cup down. “Do not worry. I would not ask this without offering my services in return.”

“Your services?”

“It is just you and her here, unless I am mistaken.” She looked over her shoulder, and Danica followed her gaze to Ahlam, who was tending to a wounded farmhand. “Your faces speak of exhaustion. I can help.”

“Well…” Danica sipped at her tea, stalling for time. It was true that they needed the help. Despite Balgruuf’s best efforts, the war was closing in on Whiterun, and she and Ahlam were running themselves ragged. Some days it felt more like an infirmary than a place of worship. Whatever Jahaziel was hoping to find there, Danica wasn’t certain, but she seemed harmless enough, spring-green eyes brimming with sincerity. She finished her tea and smiled. “I think we have a spare cot I can set up for you in the back. It’s not much, but you’re welcome to it.”

“I do not need much,” Jahaziel said. And just like that, she began to weave herself into the fabric of Danica’s life, thread by thread.

They’d butted heads in the beginning, mostly over Jahaziel’s refusal to use Restoration magic – Danica had woken more than once to find the braziers stuffed with burning herbs while her guest mixed salves and potions and chanted over the wounded. She came to accept it when she saw the results, and even learned how to make some of the salves herself, though she drew the line at Jahaziel praying to Malacath within the temple walls. They took their meals together, Jahaziel, Danica and Ahlam; supported one another, worked shoulder-to-shoulder, laughed with the living and prayed for the dead, and when spring came, Danica looked around and realized she couldn’t picture her days without Jahaziel in them.

“How much longer are you planning to stay?” she ventured one afternoon, while they were doing the wash out back. Jahaziel shrugged. The muscles in her arms flexed as she scrubbed a pair of robes against the washboard, soapy water churning around her wrists.

“Have I overstayed my welcome?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Danica tore her eyes from Jahaziel’s shoulders. “I was just wondering.”

“I have been meditating on what truth you are supposed to show me. I had hoped I would have discovered it by now, but the visions… they come on their own time. I am not as powerful a seer as my mother was.” Jahaziel wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of lather behind. “So, I suppose I will stay as long as you will have me.”

Was Danica imagining things, or was that hope in her voice? Boldness temporarily took hold, and she rested her hand on Jahaziel’s forearm. “You’ve been a great help. You’re welcome to call this your home as long as you like.”

“Home,” Jahaziel repeated. Her smile was blinding.

\-----------

It had been a long time since Danica had taken a lover, she confessed the first time they kissed. It was the height of summer, lush and overripe, hot even in the shade. There was no fanfare, no anguished confessions or declarations of forever. Just the quiet trickling of the fountain behind them and Jahaziel’s mouth on hers.

Jahaziel was silent for a second, her arms settling loosely around Danica’s waist. “Why?”

“No time. Didn’t really want one.” It felt good, to be touched again. She leaned into it without really meaning to. “Until now.”

“I see,” Jahaziel said. “There… there is something I want to tell you. If only for my own sake.”

Worry ignited in Danica’s breast. “Should we sit?”

“We can.”

Even though it was hot out, they went to the courtyard and sat beneath the shriveled branches of the Gildergreen. It didn’t feel like a conversation they should have in the temple, not while the wounded slept around them. Jahaziel stared down at her clasped hands. She’d refused the robes Danica and Ahlam wore, finding them too restrictive, and went around in a sleeveless jerkin, light breeches and hide sandals (when she could be convinced to wear shoes at all). Danica found that she liked it. She liked Jahaziel’s untamed, straightforward heart, so different from her own cautious nature, and the wariness in her demeanor was concerning. “What’s wrong?”

Jahaziel sighed. “Do you remember me telling you that my mother left our stronghold when I was very young, to raise me on her own?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I am the reason we could not stay.”

“How so?”

“When I was born, they proclaimed me male.” Jahaziel spit out the words like they were hot coals, scorching her tongue. “I am _not_. My spirit is a woman’s spirit. From the moment I could speak, it was obvious. My mother always told me that she was overjoyed. That she’d prayed to Malacath for a daughter, so she could pass on her arts, and it turned out that Malacath had blessed her with one after all.” She fiddled with the pendent that hung around her neck, thumb stroking the edge. “Not everyone agreed, so she took me away to the woods, where we could live in peace. I do not remember anything about that time, but… I am grateful to her. Always will be.”

Danica watched the branches sway in the breeze, absorbing her words. She had heard people like that existed – people whose true natures didn’t match their bodies, or so she’d been told – but had never met one.

“Your necklace.” She touched Jahaziel’s knuckles gently, traced the scars that ridged her skin. “Was it hers?”

“It was.” Jahaziel stole a sidelong glance at her. Her hand fell to her lap, Danica’s fingers on her palm. “She gave it to me a few days before she died. I always wondered if she knew, somehow.”

“Perhaps she did, if she was as powerful a shaman as you’ve said.” Their fingers entwined. “May I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“If we were to… if we became intimate, how would we…?”

Danica was no virginal maid, but she’d never had cause to discuss the particulars of love-making in such a fashion before, and she was glad there was no one around to hear them. A host of emotions tumbled across Jahaziel’s face: surprise, gratitude, relief, happiness. She leaned down, pressed her forehead against Danica’s knuckles. There was something oddly intimate about the gesture.

“I will not make love to you the way a man would, if that is what you want to know.” A minute shudder ran through her. “But there are other things we can do.”

“You make a good point.” Danica cupped her cheek, urging her to lift her head. Their eyes met. “What did you have in mind?”

Jahaziel kissed her again, deeper this time and intoxicatingly slow. It made her head spin. When she pulled back, they were both flushed and smiling. “Let me come to your room tonight,” she murmured, dropping another kiss on Danica’s lips. “I will show you.”

The next morning, Ahlam pulled them aside to ask, somewhat indelicately, if they could refrain from making quite so much noise when other people were trying to sleep in the room adjacent. Danica apologized profusely until Ahlam put a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m happy for you two,” she said. “Really. Just… keep it down, will you? Some of us need more sleep than others. Apparently.”

“Apologies,” Jahaziel said. “We will make sure you do not hear us in the future.”

She grinned toothily at Danica, who almost dropped the vase she was holding, and strolled off, hips swaying. Danica hid her face behind the bouquet of lavender and dragon’s tongue overflowing from the vase, but her smile was visible through the leaves.

That night, Ahlam went home for the first time in near a week and gave Nazeem something better to do with his mouth than sing the Jarl’s praises. He didn’t think to ask why.

\----------

Afterwards, naked and sated, Jahaziel drifted back to sleep. When she woke again, the bed was empty, Danica’s side cool. She drank her daily potion, then pulled on her tunic and breeches and wandered outside barefoot, where she found Danica standing beneath the Gildergreen, its barren branches quavering with every gust of wind.

“It used to be so beautiful,” she said, resting a hand on the gnarled trunk. An ant skittered across her fingers. “Especially in autumn. You’ve never seen such color.”

“You said when I first came here that this was a holy tree,” Jahaziel said. “What happened?”

Danica looked away. “About two years before you came to Whiterun, it was struck by lightning during a storm. Pilgrims won’t come because they think it’s dead.” Her voice, already soft, went somber. “I fear that Kynareth is angry with me.”

“Why?”

“I know how to revive it, but… I’m not strong enough.” Her hand fell limply to her side. Jahaziel put an arm around her. “I’ve neglected it far too long, and all out of cowardice.”

“Tell me what needs to be done.”

“Jahaziel – “

“Tell me,” she said again.

“Trees like this, they never truly die. They only slumber. Sap from its parent tree would most likely wake it, but there’s only one blade in this world that can cut the Eldergleam.”

“Where can I find it?”

“Ancient magic needs ancient magic. Older than humans or elves, even. The hagravens created a knife for sacrificing spriggans called Nettlebane. It’s supposedly kept at a nest not far from here, called Orphan Rock. I’ve thought about going so many times, but my magic is no match for theirs.” She slid her arm around Jahaziel’s waist, pressing close. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” Jahaziel said. “Let me do this for you anyway.”

She was only twenty-and-one, and didn’t know what love looked like yet. All she knew was that she would have torn the moons from the sky and put out the stars, if that would have eased Danica’s pain. Witches and hagravens didn’t frighten her so much as the thought of losing her new home to an angry goddess.

“You’ve already done so much for me,” Danica said. She had ash-blonde hair and brows, but her eyes were as dark and rich as earth after the rain, and now they glimmered with a mixture of fear and cautious hope. “How am I ever supposed to repay you?”

“My mother said you would lead me to the truth. Whatever it is that she wanted me to find, I have faith that it will be by your hand. That is all I have ever hoped for.” She bumped her forehead against Danica’s temple playfully. “Tell me where to find this Eldergleam, and I will be back before you know it.”

“Alright,” Danica conceded at last, and Jahaziel kissed the top of her head.

“Alright.”

\----------

She didn’t come back.

Days bled into weeks, then festered and scabbed into months. Danica sent letters, but they went unanswered. Ahlam tried to reassure her that perhaps Jahaziel simply couldn’t read and had no idea that Danica was trying to contact her, but that didn’t quell her worries, or shorten her sleepless nights. When she did sleep, she was plagued by nightmares. Most of them dissipated upon waking, but the worst one visited her time and time again – a dead Jahaziel dragging her rotting corpse into the temple, pointing at Danica with skeletal fingers. _I would still be alive if not for you!_

She prayed to Kynareth for mercy, and for guidance, but neither appeared forthcoming. She couldn’t help but think of the Breton pilgrim who’d come a few weeks after Jahaziel’s departure, and the angry words he’d spit at her – _“This is supposed to be your job!”_ The thought that Kynareth had spoken through him and she simply hadn’t seen it haunted her, drove her to spend hours in front of the altar until her knees screamed from kneeling on the stone floor and her tongue was numb from ceaseless prayer. _I’m sorry I strayed. That I wasn’t strong enough. That I needed her to do it for me._

It didn’t seem to make a difference, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. Nor could she bring herself to give up on Jahaziel. Thus, a vow was struck; if a full year came and went without her return, Danica would seek Nettlebane out herself. There was still time, she reminded herself, trying to keep the despair at bay. It was only spring. But it wasn’t long before spring burst damply into a humid summer, and like the flowers, Danica’s hopes began to wilt from the heat.

And then, on the longest day of the year, a storm ripped the sky asunder, and a stranger came to town.

He was a strange man, but that isn’t important at now; his story may be told in a different tale. What _was_ important was the message he brought with him – a brief, whispered instruction to go to the upstairs room at the Drunken Huntsman come midnight. The hours crept by, each passing minute more unbearable than the last, but eventually midnight arrived, and Danica crept through the city streets, her heart in her throat. Nobody gave her a second glance when she entered the tavern, save the elf behind the counter, who motioned towards the staircase with a jerk of his head. The door at the top of the landing sat ajar, candlelight spilling through the cracks. When she pushed it open, all the air rushed from her lungs in a sob.

“You came,” Jahaziel said, reverent. Like she couldn’t quite believe it was Danica standing in front of her. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”

Danica clapped a hand over her mouth, like she could stop the noises welling up inside her, but they bubbled through her fingers like springwater – half-laughter, half-tears. “Why are you dressed like a pirate captain?”

She recognized the patched breeches and jerkin, but the rest was new: tall black boots, a tattered blue coat that brushed her knees, and a wide-brimmed hat with hawk feathers in the band. Jahaziel chuckled and took the hat off, setting it on the nightstand.

“It… is a long story.”

“How long?”

Jahaziel opened her arms, a silent question. When they folded around Danica, something inside her cracked, like a chick breaking the shell of its egg. She wept until she was hollow.

“Why didn’t you write?” she asked, when she could speak again. “I thought you were dead. I thought…”

“I’m so sorry. I wanted to, after your first letter, but I was worried you’d be in danger.” Jahaziel pressed their foreheads together, embrace tightening. “I should be dead.”

“What do you mean?”

“We should sit. This will take some time.”

Jahaziel’s story was long indeed, and harrowing, the candle on the windowsill burning down to a waxy stump while she spoke. For clarity’s sake, we will attempt to distill it here, and it goes as follows:

The initial journey was a fine one. She had liberated Nettlebane from the hagravens and traveled to Eldergleam Sanctuary, where she intended to obtain the sap. But Kynareth had strong objections to Nettlebane being used to violate Her glory, and the resulting battle with the Earth Mother and her spriggan handmaidens had nearly destroyed the sanctuary.

(No wonder She had become so cold in recent times, Danica thought.)

Jahaziel hadn’t been in any state to travel all the way back to Whiterun after that. She’d intended to make her way to Kynesgrove and rest, but a freak storm had driven her off course, deep into the woods. Luckily, the rolling hills and dales of the Rift had been her home for many years, and it wasn’t long before she found the cabin she had grown up in, now fallen into disrepair. She had only planned to heal and rest for a day or two before returning, but the gods had other plans. She’d been out hunting the following morning when she came across a young noblewoman, injured and cornered by wolves. Her name was Ingun Black-Briar, and she was grateful to her unexpected savior. So grateful, in fact, that she insisted Jahaziel come back to the city with her so she could be properly rewarded.

At the time, Jahaziel hadn’t really known who the Black-Briars were, besides a name that reeked of coin and other riches. She’d eagerly agreed. Now, though. Now, she knew. The name had been branded into her heart.

No warm welcome awaited her in Riften. She would have been surprised if it had. But Ingun gave her food and coin, and her father Hemming thanked Jahaziel, somewhat laconically, for saving his daughter’s life. Even Maven, the steely-eyed clan matriarch, spared her a clipped thank you (if not much else). It was the man they called Maul who gave her pause. The way his eyes followed her from his corner of the room made all her hair stand on end. She was unaccustomed to men looking at her, but that wasn’t the problem - there was nothing sexual in his gaze. Only a kind of unflinching assessment, like he was stripping away skin and muscle to judge the heart beating underneath, and found it lacking.

Not twelve hours later, he tried to kill her.

It was partially her fault, she told Danica (who, it must be noted, vehemently disagreed). If she’d been thinking, she would have headed for Whiterun without a backwards glance. But she’d wanted to see the cabin again, years of memories and longing beckoning her back to the woods one last time, and it was there he found her, standing in the ruins of her former life.

It was a long and bloody fight, and though she emerged the victor, it wasn’t without cost – one of the beautiful green eyes Danica loved so much was gone, gouged out by the point of his dagger. She’d nearly lost something more precious still when he cut her mother’s pendant from around her neck.

“I thought I recognized this, but I wasn’t sure,” he’d said, almost conversationally. Like he didn’t have a blade to her throat, blood oozing from her empty eye socket. “Not until you led me here. You don’t even know what you have, do you?”

She shook her head, mute. The necklace was gold, and beginning to tarnish with age, but the sapphire in its center gleamed like new, blue as the sea. Thorny vines ringed it, spiraling outward, and on the back, there was a bee, overlaid on a honeycomb pattern. Beautiful detailing, to be sure, but she’d never paid it any attention.

Maul snorted and tucked it into his pocket. “That’s the Black-Briar family crest. Maven used to have a pendant just like this, until it disappeared. So if I’m right, and this place is what I think it is… well. That would make you one of Hemming’s bastards, wouldn’t it?”

“What?”

(As it turned out, Jahaziel hadn’t been raised in a stronghold, which explained why she had only her mother’s word, in lieu of memories. She wasn’t upset by the falsehood. She understood more now than ever why she had been lied to.)

Maul made a show of thinking it over. “What was your mother’s name again? Sharog? Shel? It’s on the tip of my tongue…”

“Shara,” she whispered.

“Huh. I was close.” He shrugged and smiled. One of his canines was missing. “Can’t expect me to remember every bitch Maven’s had me kill.”

(We will omit the details of his demise, for Jahaziel deemed them too gruesome to repeat, and Danica didn’t want to hear them regardless. But privately, she would relish his screams as she took her revenge for the rest of her days.)

She took the necklace and fled to the coast, away from Whiterun. If the Black-Briars were going to send someone after her, she wasn’t going to lead them to the temple. Instead, she went to Windhelm, with its bleak grey cliffs and fleet of boats bobbing the harbor on icy swells, and stowed away on a sleek vessel named The Windshear. It wasn’t much of a plan, she admitted, but she was afraid and grasping at straws. When she’d seen a ship with an open cargo hold bound for Solitude, she’d leapt at the chance. She’d only meant to lay low for a bit, far away from Riften while she figured out what to do next, but the Windshear didn’t even make it to Dawnstar before it was raided by pirates.

Only quick thinking saved her. The crew of the Seathorn had no healer, nor a cook, and they were in desperate need of both. That, Jahaziel explained, was how she ended up in the service of the unluckiest pirates in Skyrim.

If something could go wrong for them, it did; if there was a storm brewing or a flock of angry seabirds waiting to attack or a loose rope to snatch somebody’s ankle and drag them up the mast, it would, and then fingers would point and the bickering would begin. The only reason their raid on the Windshear was successful was because it had already run aground on an ice floe. They were scavengers and misfits, each and every one of them chewed up and spat out by circumstance, and little by little, she grew fond of them in her own way. They grew fond of her, too – fond enough to elect her their new captain when she rescued them from the crew of the Red Wave after an attempt at trade had gone sour. The previous captain had died a week or two prior, when the boom got loose and knocked him overboard, into the waiting jaws of a hungry shark.

“I’ve been sailing with them ever since,” she finished, holding Danica’s hands tight in her own. “I finally got them to come inland for a few days, but it’s hard when your ship is wanted in all the major ports.”

“I thought I’d lost you.” Danica touched her cheek, wind-roughened and newly scarred. “You and Kynareth both.”

“I would have come sooner, but I was afraid of putting you in danger. They tell me the Black-Briars have a long reach.” Her remaining eye shone bright, full of helpless longing. “But I had to see you again.”

Morning was only scant hours away, and they made love with a kind of bittersweet urgency, until they were saturated with the taste of one another and Danica’s fingers had mapped every hill and plain of Jahaziel’s body. Sunlight’s first rays trickled through the shutters as they lay in bed, limbs tangled like creeping vines, and Danica laid her head between Jahaziel’s breasts to listen to her heartbeat.

“Don’t go,” she said quietly. “I only just got you back.”

Jahaziel was silent for a moment. “Do you remember why I first came here?”

“’A pure spring will lead you to the truth’,” Danica quoted, toying with the end of one of Jahaziel’s braids. “I remember.”

“You led me to the truth when you sent me to the Eldergleam. I won’t ever forget that.” She stroked Danica’s bare back, tracing the dip of her spine. “But I have to do this alone.”

“Why?” Danica sat up. “Why do you have to do it alone?”

“Because of this.” She tapped the patch over her missing eye. “This is the cost of revenge. It’s mine to pay, not yours.”

“The Black-Briars are dangerous, Jahaziel! Not even a month ago, Maven put the rival meadery here out of business with a snap of her fingers. Just like that.” Not that anyone said so outright – few people were that foolish – but rumors had a way of spreading, no matter how hard anyone might try to quash them. “You can’t fight them all by yourself.”

“I will if it means that they can’t touch you.” Jahaziel looked at her solemnly. “They murdered my mother, Danica. I will have my revenge, but I won’t let you suffer for it.”

They looked at one another, unmoving, but then the tension eased and Danica sighed, looking away. “You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?”

“I am sorry. Really.” For a second, Jahaziel sounded like her old self again, before she started down the path she’d been set on (and that would be something Danica carried with her for the rest of her days). But then she changed the subject, and it was gone. “There’s one other reason I had to come back.” She nodded at the satchel sitting on the nightstand, partly covered by the hat. “Look in there.”

Danica thought maybe she already knew, but her heart beat faster all the same. There was only one thing in the satchel. The vial hummed in her hand, warm as the first sunshine after winter’s thaw. “Is this…?”

“It is.” Jahaziel swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was grinning. “I hid it in a safe place before I left land.”

“You really did it,” Danica whispered, cradling the vial close. At her back, there was movement, and then Jahaziel’s arms wrapped around her, solid and comforting.

“You see? I will always come home.”

\----------

“Where have you been?” Ahlam demanded the second Danica crossed the temple threshold. “Severio was brought in this morning on the brink of death, missing half his leg, and you – “ She cut herself off, taking in Danica’s red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks, and her irritation dimmed. “You look terrible. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. It’s… it’s nothing.” Danica dabbed at her eyes hastily, under the pretense of smoothing her tangled hair away from her face. She’d promised she wouldn’t mention Jahaziel’s visit when they parted ways, and she would keep that promise; those last moments were theirs alone. “I’m sorry. Is Severio – ?”

“He’s alive. It was a threshing accident. Nothing injured but the leg, thankfully. I have him sleeping it off in the back.” Ahlam looked her over again, brow creased. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

She reached out, took Ahlam’s arm in the crook of her own. “Come with me.”

\----------

The sun beat down and the Gildergreen loomed overhead, gnarled branches grasping at the sky. When Danica uncorked the vial, she was greeted with the pungent scents of dirt and cut grass, floral sweetness mixed with fresh rain and the sharp amber of new sap. She blinked back a prickle of unexpected tears. At her side, Ahlam sniffed curiously. “What is that?”

“A prayer.”

There was a space between the two biggest roots, a safe dark cradle of wood and earth. When she knelt and upended the vial, they absorbed its contents greedily, leaving nothing but a faint dampness behind. She set down the vial and held out her hand. “Pray with me now. Please.”

If Ahlam thought she was mad, she kept it to herself. She knelt next to Danica, their knees sinking into the loam at the base of the tree, and clasped her hand tight.

“Come to me, Kynareth.” Danica’s voice shook as she began, her palm sweaty where it pressed against Ahlam’s. “For without You, I might not know the mysteries of the world, and so, blind and in terror, I might consume and p – pr – “ The word broke off, brittle in her mouth. “I might consume, and profane – I _have_ profaned.” Her shoulders shook. “I have asked others to profane Your beauty out of cowardice. I have failed You, and for that, I beg You to show me mercy, in all Your infinite grace. _Please_ – “

Tears poured down her cheeks like a waterfall, soaking into the dirt, and Ahlam’s arm encircled her shoulders and held fast.

“Come to me, Kynareth,” she sang out, clear and bright. Danica couldn’t sing to save her life, so she always asked Ahlam to lead the hymns on holy days, and Ahlam sang now, all three stanzas of prayer repeated until they blended together in a wordless lament. Danica put her face in her hands and listened to the wind carry the refrain high above the city.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, when the last notes had faded away. “That was terribly undignified.”

“Hush. It’s fine.” Ahlam helped her to her feet. Both of them had patches of dirt on their robes from where they’d been kneeling. “But what did you mean when you said you profaned? What was in that vial?”

Danica’s hood had fallen loose, and the wind ruffled her hair and tugged at Ahlam’s skirts, like it was urging them inside. She let it push her towards the door. “Come on. I’ll explain over lunch.”

\----------

 _Wake up,_ said a voice like rain on the river, and Danica was pulled from her dreams. She made a half-hearted grasp for them as she woke, but they slipped through her fingers and melted away. When she sat up, she was alone.

She’d slept in Jahaziel’s old room, which she did now and again even though no traces of her lover remained. A cold comfort, maybe, but a comfort nonetheless, knowing she was still out there. Noise filtered through the temple hallway, shushing against stone, and then came the slap of bare feet headed Danica’s way.

“Danica!” Ahlam panted in the doorway, robe hastily belted and clutched shut in the front. Her hair curled around her face like woodsmoke. “Wake up.”

“I’m awake.” Danica’s toes touched cold stone when she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She shivered, groping for her own robes. “What’s going on?”

“Come on,” Ahlam said. “You have to see this.”

\----------

When the temple doors opened before her, it was to snow.

No, not snow – it was still summer, and warm outside, sunshine caressing her face. But the air was filled with flurries of white, tumbling and falling in fragrant waves, and when Danica put her hands out, they were filled too. A rich scent hovered around them, dizzying and honey-thick; pollen itched at her noise, lush on her tongue.

_Flowers…_

Thousands of them, flooding Whiterun’s streets all the way up to Dragonsreach, and the temple at the center of it all, like the eye of the storm. The Gildergreen towered over the surrounding buildings now, taller than the city walls, its branches like a great canopy of pink and cream. A screech echoed overhead, and Danica looked up to see a hawk perched in the crook of the nearest branch, watching them as the people stumbled forth from their homes to witness Kynareth’s blessing.

“It’s a miracle,” Ahlam said, staring out across the city in wonder. “She’s returned.”

The hawk’s eye bored into Danica’s, unblinking. Its wings flared, sunlight sliding through rust-red feathers and falling petals. The wind picked up, flowers whirling violently, and then it was gone. She blinked away pollen, hands outstretched. Soon, it would be autumn, and then winter, the wheel of the seasons turning ever onward. Like the Gildergreen, she would slumber, her heart locked away beneath the bark of her skin; like the Gildergreen, she would renew. She pictured Jahaziel at the prow of a ship, wearing her hat with the hawk feathers and tattered coat, parting the sea before her as she sailed into the blue.

“The patron of travelers and sailors,” she murmured. “Fitting, after all.”

“What?” Ahlam asked.

“Nothing,” Danica said, and laughed, petals kissing her upturned palms. “Nothing, nothing…”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the SKM wanting to hear the stories of peoples' trans characters. Jahaziel is one of the first characters I ever created - the Orcish shaman turned pirate queen, hellbent on revenge against one of the most powerful women in Skyrim - and it seemed like as good a time as any to write out her origin story.


End file.
